


About the Floss

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Patch Works [21]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Living Together, Odd Couples, Office Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1305874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Giles are totally in love.  Now they have to live together.  And work together.  At the same time.  But this is just a little snippet.  About the floss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About the Floss

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Who Do You Think You Are?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235281) by [ProtoNeoRomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic). 



“Well, I don’t disagree,” Giles admitted, looking at his teeth in the mirror, for what purpose, Buffy couldn't guess. “I've been consulting my books most of the evening...”

“I’m shocked,” Buffy grinned, turning down the covers.

“... _But_ I haven’t found anything particularly illuminating.”

“Also shocking,” she said, utterly deadpan this time, getting into bed.

He gave her a mildly exasperated look. “The good news,” he went on, reaching to get something out of the top dresser drawer, “is that there are no particularly auspicious signs, portents or opportunities for anyone trying to reopen the Hellmouth at this time.” The thing was a wheel of dental floss, apparently totally separate from the one he kept in the bathroom where it belonged. “The bad news is that there are any number of dark and dangerous rituals for which the Hellmouth is an ideal location.”

Giles pulled a length of floss from the spool and snapped it off against the tiny cutting surface. “Considering that the full moon is coming up, I’m concentrating on rituals that require that lunar phase.” He was winding the floss around two fingers, one on either hand. “I have a few ideas, but I need to get to the library early in the morning to check out—” He was bearing his teeth at the mirror. He was raising the floss to his mouth.

Buffy couldn't stand it any longer. Joint showering was one thing, but this was taking group hygienics way too far. “Oh my God!” she said indignantly, “you’re not actually going to do that and talk to me at the same time!”

Giles looked at her as though she’d grown another head. “I beg your pardon?” he said, in a way that Buffy felt sure was calculated to make her feel as if she were behaving irrationally.

“I’m with Julia Roberts on this one,” she said, moderating her tone. “Dental floss, not sexy.”

“I wasn't aware that it had to be,” Giles mumbled, a little resentfully. He stopped talking but went on flossing. Buffy tried not to watch. ‘They make bathrooms for that,’ she wanted to say, but didn't, pretty sure that it would qualify, at least in his mind, as arguing over something trivial.

Besides, she reminded herself, who knew when they would get the chance to spend the night together again. She certainly didn’t want to spend it fighting. She also didn’t want to spend it watching him refloss his already perfectly clean teeth, but she supposed 'married life' had to require some sacrifices.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this for the very self indulgent reason of setting up a one line joke in which Buffy says to Xander (while obliviously complaining to him about the struggles of married life as if he is not waiting breathlessly for her marriage to fail) "and I haven't even told you about the floss." In the end the whole thing worked better without it, but I still sort of love this scene.


End file.
